Bradford-on-Avon's traffic problems to be focus of new plan

The Wiltshire town's traffic woes have featured on national BBC travel bulletins

A council battling with traffic issues has said it will carry out a public consultation to find a solution.

Bradford-on-Avon Town Council said a questionnaire due to be released in November would mark the start of its engagement programme.

It comes after residents said in August 2020 that a £30,000 one-way system had created "havoc" on the town's roads.

Wiltshire county councillors, the town's mayor and highways officers have confirmed their support to the plan.

The town authority said it needed to find a "comprehensive solution" to issues with traffic volume and speed, pollution and pedestrian safety.

It is an issue that town councillors said had "plagued the town for decades".

Bradford-on-Avon Swan Hotel director, James Sullivan-Tailyour, said the focus of the consultation needed to be on the issues that needed fixing and "not the solutions".

"It is an issue for us, no question about it. But everyone seems to have loads of ideas as to what should be done," he said.

'Lot of resentment'

Mr Sullivan-Tailyour said he feared the ideas the residents might have during the consultation might not be the most useful.

"What do we want our town to look like? That should be our focus and then the rest left to the professionals," he added.

Councillor Tim Trimble said the council was looking for something that pleased everyone.

"There was in fact a one-way system I believe in the 1970s, so that will give you a good idea as to how long we have been trying to sort this," he said.

"We want people to express their views so that we can then design what an optimum system might be.

"Up to now, all of these different one-way, two-way systems have been imposed on people and that leaves quite a lot of resentment."

The council said it hoped to start the consultation on 27 November.